


Five Glimpses of a Marriage

by salable_mystic



Category: Georgette Heyer - Works
Genre: F/M, Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-29
Updated: 2007-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-09 05:39:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salable_mystic/pseuds/salable_mystic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five glimpses into the marriage of Venetia Lanyon and Jasper Damerel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Glimpses of a Marriage

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SJ Kasabi in the Yuletide 2007 Challenge. Thank you to Jule for the beta!

Venetia and Damerel did end up going to Rome for their honeymoon, after all, though they did not manage to set off on it as soon as either one of them would have liked.

Damerel managed to convince Venetia that, while it might not bother her to be ostracized from society, and while it might indeed verily happen at some point in the future, they might at least try not to have it happen to them right now. For else, what would there be to both aspire to and live in faint dread of? What with his loose ways, he added self-deprecatingly, and her shocking tendency to flaunt mores and traditions (his eyes laughed when saying this, though he did tried to keep a firm mien), it might well happen to them eventually anyway, no matter their best efforts. Venetia replied with an affectionate "Stoopid," but in the end consented to being presented to his Aunt Stoborough, and seeing what the combined efforts of Lord Hendred and Lady Stoborough could do towards establishing them in society.

It worked liked Lord Hendred had predicted – his (carefully public) reaction of firmly controlled horror towards the announcement of their engagement led Lady Stoborough (a formidable lady, if rather on the eccentric and fusty side, Venetia judged her, with plenty of sharp retorts but no real malice in her) to welcome her warmly at their first meeting. And that, Damerel laughingly added, was that. Escaping Venetia's charm was something well beyond his aunt's powers. And in the end, he wryly averred, what was a little scandal when weighed against the prospect of a 'reformed' nephew?

Venetia laughed at him and only replied that, if he thought of taking up Edward's worthy ways, he had please inform her right now, when there was still time for her to cry off their engagement and run off to find Oswald Denny – who, chances were, was by now gladly rid of his calf-love of her, and so she might end up having to set up house in Hans Town after all. Or go stay with her mother and step-father in Paris.

Neither (laughingly voiced) option, needless to say, held much appeal for Damerel, and he averred that, if Venetia had suddenly come of feel a strange attraction to the dandy-set, surely he could find a larger neck-cloth and start lounging in chairs artistically. Though only, he added, when his aunt was not there to observe this, because otherwise this whole rather tedious exercise in civility might just have been in vain, after all.

Since that was a fate to be averted, Venetia replied with a twinkle in her eye, she would consent to enacting on some outward propriety and restraint … though, he'd do well to remember, there was still that orgy he had once promised she could preside over.

To all this Damerel only laughed and sighed dramatically – and kissed her, for they were in private, after all, and he had discovered that to be a most excellent way of stilling her sporting protestations.

\---

So, to Rome they went, in the spring, escaping from the London season. They too Aubrey with them and all three of them enjoyed Rome, and the tour they took through the Kingdoms and Douchies of the Italian Peninsula that followed – albeit Venetia admitted that she spent a good time more looking at ancient ruins and buildings than she otherwise would have done.

The pace they set was slow, both out of deference to Aubrey's physical limitations, as well as out of their collective personal preference. Venetia sometimes liked to hang back a little, for she delighted in watching Damerel and Aubrey explore together. While she had found both a friend and a love in Damerel, Aubrey had found a friend and a mentor, and of that she was glad. So few people could understand the complexity of his thoughts – so really, it had turned out all for the best, for both of them.

\---

Venetia managed to convince Damerel not to sell his yacht, or his race horses, and Damerel managed to convince Venetia that living in debt was not the best way to go about married life, either.

So they managed to find a compromising position somewhere in between – helped, again, by his aunts, who had made him their heir after all, and decided to settle a yearly stipend on him. Had they known that part of it went into the feeding, shoeing and otherwise keeping of race horses they would have been horrified – but since neither Damerel nor Venetia ever informed them of the matter, they managed to live in blissful ignorance of the fact.

Part of their compromise was that Venetia made Damerel take her to see the races – horses that ate their money they should, after all, also see, she claimed – and Damerel managed to convince her to not name their horses by names that might outrage the more genteel set of visitors to said races, much as they both might enjoy that. So, while privately they might refer to their horses as Ninnyhammer, Paphian or Oedipus Rex (a joke they spent a long time laughing about, much to the bemusement of faithful Marston, who continued to be a central member of their household), they officially kept names like Dragon, Elizabeth or Captain.

\---

They spent the summer before Aubrey went off to Cambridge at the Priory, settling into an uneasy relationship with their neighbours at Undershaw.

Much to his secret chagrin, Conway had not yet managed to get rid of his mother in law, even though he had finally returned home in January. Charlotte's baby – a boy – managed to contain Mrs. Scorrier's energies somewhat, and while live at Undershaw might not have been exactly pleasant for him, neither was it horrible. Charlotte was prospering under Nurse's care for both her and the boy, and if he needed to escape for a couple of hours, he knew he could always ride over to the Priory to visit with Aubrey, Venetia and Damerel – the latter of whom he had struck up a polite and indifferent relationship with, with them neither becoming fast friends nor being inclined to dislike one another.

After Aubrey had been sent off to Cambridge – from where he sent short but not infrequent letters, taken up almost entirely by discussions of the books he was reading and the things he was learning – Venetia and Damerel spent more than one memorable afternoon looking for blackberries together, in fond memory of the occasion of their first meeting.

It was during one of these afternoons, they both were convinced, that their first child was conceived.

\---

Though they had their occasional – and memorable – fights, and the days when they didn't speak to each other for one reason or another, blazing angry as they could both become, and there were hours when she wished that she had set up house on her own, after all, because that would have kept her from having to spend time with this impossible excuse for a husband – these never lasted long, and they always found back to their love and friendship for one another, and their ability to share both laughter and sadness together.

No, the only thing Venetia ever vaguely regretted in her married life to Damerel for more than an hour or a day, was that she – albeit they did travel extensively – never did manage to meet 'The Venetian Nobleman And His Fat Lady,' as she referred to them – the woman Damerel had, so long ago, it seemed to her now, once lost his heart to, and that had set him on the long and winding road to finding her, and happiness.

Not that she was particularly interested in meeting either her, or her Venetian Nobleman, per se – indeed, she could not help feeling resentment for the way she had treated Damerel all those years ago, even if it had all turned out for the best, in the end – but the point of whether or not she had grown fat kept being a point of laughing contention between Damerel and her, and sometimes, Venetia thought, she would just like to know. Just out of curiosity.


End file.
